Academy Monologues
by November Romeo
Summary: A short story collection on the gang and the people they encounter. Because let's not forget, there are other people in the Academy.
1. Afternoon Tea

**Academy Monologues**

**Disclaimer: **The author respects the rights of Tachibana Higuchi, creator of Gakuen Alice.

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**Prompt 1: Afternoon Tea – Kitsuneme**

**Genre: Hurt / Comfort**

There was a girl.

_ 'Son, there's always a girl.'_

In my head, that's how this story began and ended. The day I met her, all I wanted was sweet potato cheesecake and there was only one place in Central Town where I could find it. That's where I went and that's where The Encounter happened.

'_Son, encounters could change your life.'_

This one did, even if the change only lasted two weeks. I walked into the maid café as a hungry customer. I came out a different person. Looking back I should have just gone to my seat, focused on the potato cheesecake and stayed oblivious to everything else. Unfortunately, I looked up. The girl with long blond curls and startling blue eyes was right in front of me.

_'You were a goner.'_

I was a goner. I didn't think it was possible to fall that fast. Maybe it was my Alice that did me in. I've always floated in the air so when I fell, I simply crashed. I could've survived it too. If I had stayed in my seat far away from her coy smile and dainty gloves, I'd have walked out of there unharmed. She sat alone in white frills and lace. Who wears things like that in the Academy? I didn't stand a chance. I approached her with confidence I never possessed before. We got acquainted.

_'The Encounter was complete._'

For two weeks after that, I returned to the café, seeking her company. She was lovely and I've never used that to describe a girl before. She would look at me with a sparkling gaze and I felt like I could do anything. She seemed so small and delicate. She brought out a protective streak in me and I didn't even know I had one. For the first time in my life, I was grounded— and not in the way parents punish their children. I felt like my feet were solidly attached to the earth because I had somewhere I needed to be and I wasn't in any hurry to take off again.

_'She turned you into a Romantic.'_

She. Turned. Me. Into. A Romantic.

She ruined me. I let her ruin me and for a fortnight I didn't know any better. I should have gotten an idea though because there was something very strange about her. She was just so _clean _all the time. I found it fascinating at first but when I remember it now, she shouldn't have been that polished. How could her clothes stay immaculately smooth after taking the Central Town bus? How could she eat scones and other pastries without ever getting confectionary sugar on her clothes?

_'It's a mystery.'_

And it stayed a mystery until we went our separate ways. I should probably backtrack a bit and be more accurate. We didn't go our separate ways so much as she shoved me out of her life when she found that it suited her. I could still remember the way she looked at me that day. It was cold. It was a cold, heartless move delivered in white, frilly lace.

"You don't want to have tea with me anymore?" I had asked in a half-bewildered, half-manic state. I felt my ass leave the seat as my Alice inadvertently kicked into gear. She saw it too.

"Don't make a scene," she spoke calmly over her tea cup, one pinky up. There had been nothing delicate about her at that moment. Nothing at all. She wasn't lovely. She didn't sparkle. She was a well-bred pitiless debutante with fangs. "Suffice to say, we're not compatible."

"Why?"

_ 'You shouldn't have asked.'_

It was a hard lesson earned.

"You're much too rough around the edges, Kitsu," she had said in a carefully condescending tone. "Why, you've been coming here for two weeks now and you still use your butter knife to finish your salad. You just don't make an effort."

Eating a salad was the effort. At her words, at the utter emptiness and shallowness of her answer, I felt myself crash for the second time that month. This time though, my vision was clear when it happened. I tossed my napkin onto the table and stood. I walked out of there with as much dignity as I could muster and in no time I was telling my best friends all about the ordeal.

_'Payback is sweet, potato cheesecake sweet.'_

I returned to the café two days later. As I expected, she was sitting at our table and without hesitation, I planted myself across her.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to order steak at three o'clock in the afternoon and I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to follow it up with a kiwi parfait and a chocolate milkshake. I'm going to binge."

"Why are you-?"

"Hey buddy," Koko suddenly greeted then to my surprise my friend grabbed a chair and joined the table. Before either of us could react, Mochu, Ruka, Natsume and Yuu were there to join the party. We were a group of seven occupying a table for four.

She was aghast. "This is most irregular!"

"No, this is rude," Yuu corrected her. "But you already know all about rudeness, right?"

"I'm offended!"

"Of course you are," Mochu snickered. Then he grabbed the menu and they started ordering ice cream and crepes. She sat there for about ten minutes then when we seemed to have embarrassed her enough with our noise and our laughter and our being ourselves, she stood up and swung out of the room in a lacey blur. The table grew quiet.

"You didn't have to come," I said softly.

In answer, Natsume raised a scone, which he had been eating with his bare hands, his knife and fork completely forgotten. Ruka grinned. "We've got your back."

I never saw her again after that day. She might have found another café or maybe she stopped wearing so many frills so I didn't recognize her. We never encountered each other in school so it wasn't really a surprise that we didn't run into each other after.

So in my head, that's how this story began and ended. There was a girl.

_ 'Son, there's always a girl.'_

Yes, until there wasn't any more.

**THE END**


	2. Kokeshi

**Academy Monologues**

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**Prompt 2: Kokeshi – Nonoko**

**Genre: Romance**

There's a kimmidoll that says Nonoko means 'carefree'. She wears a navy blue kimono with a pretty pink lotus flower on the front. The expression etched on her face does indeed look calm. It makes me wonder just how accurate kimmidolls are because I, a true Nonoko, am not exactly serene. I may look the part, I may even act it, but as a Chemistry Alice my mind is always running formulas and permutations a mile a minute.

This proved to be my fortune and my weakness.

Three weeks ago, I met Ryoji Uemura. He was part of the Woodworking Club and I came to know him because my mentor sent me to his workshop. At the time, I was trying to concoct a Serenity Draught and I couldn't get it right. When my teacher learned why I was spending extended hours in my lab, she told me it was unhealthy and that I was wasting my time because someone had already perfected this formula. I was intrigued so she sent me to Ryoji to find out exactly how he had done it.

Ryoji is a tall, lanky student with dark hair and warm brown eyes. When I first arrived in his workshop, I was taken aback because the entire room was full of kokeshi dolls. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves that were occupied by these handmade wooden dolls. The workmanship was clearly first-rate and I found myself standing in awe for about two minutes before I realized their maker was watching me with curiosity and amusement.

"Are you Ryoji?"

He glanced at a slip of paper on his desk then walked up to me. "You must be Nonoko. Ms. Nishimura told me you were coming."

"Are these all yours?" I asked. The dolls were beautiful and I couldn't stop looking at them because there was so much to take in. He followed my line of sight then pulled down a tiny doll painted light blue with tiny wisteria blossoms. He handed it to me like I was a child waiting for a new toy.

"Yes."

"Do you have a Doll-making Alice?"

"No," he said with a sideways smile, "And this isn't why you're here. You're here for tea."

With a gallant gesture, Ryoji led me to the back of his workshop and I was startled for the second time to find that it was set up as a tea room. It was built with five tatami mats and was clearly set up for a ceremony. He noted my anxiety and laughed a little.

"Don't worry. I've already made the tea." We stepped inside and he prepared a simple setting on a low table. When he settled across me, he explained, "This is my Alice."

"You have a Tea Alice?"

"I'm sure you've heard of stranger things."

"Yes, of course," I said shyly. I couldn't look at him directly. He started pouring us both a cup then set a small plate of sweet candies in front of me.

"Go ahead."

I took a bite of the candy then when the cup was cool enough to touch, I lifted it to my lips. Ryoji waited expectantly for my reaction.

My eyes shut. I knew that was the magical brew that was supposed to grant serenity to whoever drank it but for some reason it didn't have that effect on me. There was a hammering in my chest that I knew had nothing to do with excitement for having the chance to decipher this potent brew.

_Inorganic components, _I thought as my Alice kicked in. _Potassium, Calcium, Phosphate, Magnesium… three-quarters of nitrogen in amino acids, specifically theanine… polyphenol oxidase… then… then?… ?!_

It was as though my mind shut down. My eyes flew open and whatever tranquility I was starting to feel disappeared in an instant. I had run into an ingredient I couldn't identify. It was like heading straight into a wall. It alarmed me and Ryoji sensed it at once.

"Are you all right?"

"What's in here?"

"It's _matcha_ and hot water," he assured me. "Everything else is probably my Alice."

The Chemistry Alice trying to decipher the Tea Alice. It was unheard of. What was my mentor thinking when she sent me here?

"I'm sorry for troubling you." I quickly went to my feet. "I don't think this is what I need, but thank you for letting me come."

"Of course," he said, standing up too. "I'll see you to the door."

"I'll let myself out," I answered hastily then I rushed out of the room. I ran a couple of yards before my footsteps finally slowed and stopped. I raised a hand to my cheek. My face was hot and my heart hadn't found a normal rhythm. My mind replayed what happened in there, from my first view of the kokeshi dolls to the complete malfunction of my Alice. It felt surreal and amazing at the same time. Then I realized, to my embarrassment, that I was holding the woodwork he had handed me. In my rush, I absently grabbed it off the table as though it was my possession. That's when I knew I would have to return the next day.

I didn't know where I found the nerve or the composure but I did go back to his workshop and I showed up for a full week thereafter. He was very kind about it and he seemed quite willing to keep serving tea until I was satisfied with my study.

"You'll figure it out sooner or later," he said with the same winsome smile.

"I hope so."

It was on my fifth visit when he first handed me a block of wood and told me to start a project. If I was going to keep visiting him, he said, I might as well learn more about his craft. After all, it had nothing to do with his Alice so why should it have anything to do with mine? I understood what he was saying and so I started to learn how to make kokeshi dolls— a talent far removed from my Alice. Ryoji lent me his tools and soon I was carving dolls right alongside him, though with very little skill. We started talking after that, about school and classes, about kimmidolls and ourselves. I was strangely contented whenever I was there and I couldn't decide whether the dolls or the tea was the real prop that kept us in sync.

The tea remained a mystery to me.

Then one day I walked to his workshop and found him closing up. He appeared dressed for a date and he told me he was heading to Central Town. I felt a wild beating in my chest that had become strangely familiar whenever I was around him. This time though my heart was thrashing about because there was a jealous bird trapped inside and it was fighting to get out. I was staring at him, accusingly I think. Instead of demanding an explanation, which I knew was not my place to request, I nodded mutely then left. He didn't stop me.

I didn't sleep at all that night. My mind kept going back to Ryoji Uemura, his enigmatic tea and his even more impressive kokeshi. Still, if I was completely honest, that wasn't what was keeping me up exactly. I was more upset by the thought that he could have been at Central Town with a faceless, nameless, _blameless_ girl that I irrationally disliked at the moment. Who was he with? How did he meet her? When did I start asking these questions?

I groaned loudly then flipped to my side. If anything, that restless night reminded me that I wasn't anywhere close to successfully brewing my own Serenity Draught.

The following day, I returned to the workshop without a clear idea of what I wanted to happen. When I arrived, he had the tea setting ready and a cup had been laid out just for me. Ryoji smiled brightly. He was clearly relieved that I had come.

Before we could even sit down, I blurted out, "I don't want you drinking tea with anyone else."

I was completely mortified by my own words. Ryoji looked flummoxed for a moment, as though I had just announced his tea's super secret ingredient, then slowly his expression smoothed into a faint, comfortable smile.

"I'm not."

"Oh okay," I muttered, looking away. I felt awkward and uneasy but the captive bird inside me was dancing some kind of jig.

"Would you care to sit?"

I pushed the hair out of my eyes then sat down with as much dignity as possible. He handed me a kokeshi doll that had been painted navy blue with a pink lotus flower on the front. It was prettier than any kimmidoll could ever be. I glanced at him but he wasn't looking my way so instead I picked up a brush to put in the finishing touches. Ryoji poured out tea for both of us.

He understood me, didn't he? He must know what I was trying to say. Then I realized there was one more thing he needed to hear.

"I'm not drinking tea with anyone else either," I whispered without taking my eyes off what I was doing. "Just so you know."

"I do know," he said with his sideways smile. "But it's nice of you to say so."

I blushed. "Shut up."

"Yes ma'am."

After that day, I didn't need a Serenity Draught any longer and the 'Nonoko' doll started meaning so much more than just 'carefree'.


	3. Dark Days

**Academy Monologues**

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**Prompt 3: Dark Days – Kokoroyumi**

**Genre: Angst**

Everyone has dark days, days when nothing in the world seems right and everything going on just seems so meaningless and inconsequential. It's when you start wondering what you're meant to be doing with the incredibly short time you've been given to be alive. It's when you start searching for purpose and when the feeling becomes too overwhelming, you succumb to defeat and just lie where you are because moving around and trying to make something of yourself is pointless when you already know you're going to fail. Dark days happen to everyone. It's not a phenomenon. It's a slump, a dark hole you just trip and fall into one day and if you don't have anyone to pull you out of it or if you can't do it yourself, the pit just goes on and on and on.

What most people don't know is that sometimes people have dark days at the same time. It's pretty logical. With only three hundred sixty-five days in a year it's only rational to believe that several people all at once could feel lost, inadequate and despised. Still, it seems like everyone is more eager to believe that what they're feeling is unique, as though being misunderstood is a source of comfort. That's because when you find out that your emotions are basically a replica of that of a million others, you start feeling even more ordinary than you already do.

I'm not 'most people' so I know that persons at a time are being swallowed up by their personal hells every day.

There's the girl in Math Class who thinks she's too stupid to pass anything and that the only reason she's still in the Academy is her Alice. There's the boy I pass by every morning who keeps getting bullied by his classmates because he's overweight. There's the girl who's trying very hard to fit in so she keeps hanging out with the wrong people and is treated like a doormat for it. There are so many of them and sometimes I just want to tell them all to shut up.

_Quit moping. You need to study harder. Just stop eating all the time. There's a reason why our food is rationed. Your friends don't really like you. Why can't you see that? Just go hang out with someone else._

These are things I know, but these are also things I'm not allowed to say out loud because it's not my place and if I try to help every person in my vicinity by acting like a real-life sounding board, there would be nothing left of me by the end of the day. That is the pitfall of my Alice. Instead of feeling powerful and influential by knowing all these things, I'm just another passive-aggressive teenager with his hands eternally tied behind his back.

So instead I smile all the time. I grit my teeth and fight back tears when someone's pain gets too sharp. I tell a joke and laugh with my friends instead of blurting out someone's secret. I sleep in class and try to shut out the rest of the world because really, sometimes I know more than anyone else that whatever's waiting for me in the real world just isn't worth staying awake for.

This story isn't about me though. It's about Ichigo Ueda, a second-year student in the high school division. I'm sure you've never heard of him, until maybe two days ago. I met him only once. We talked on the day that he died.

_What am I even doing here? This is bullshit. Everything is bullshit. I shouldn't be here. Everyone would be better off if I didn't show up._

I spun around and my gaze latched on to a boy that was walking away from me. I recognized it at once. He was having a dark day. So I followed him and forced an encounter. He had paused at the water fountain when he turned the corner, I ran into him.

"Hey, sorry."

He looked up at me and for a moment I got scared because his mind was suddenly wiped clean. There was nothing there and the void that met me was frightening.

"You're Koko. You read minds."

"You know who I am?"

"You're from Class B, with those popular kids."

"Yeah," I said. There was no point denying my friends were well-known. "You're Ichigo Ueda." He nods and I quickly scanned him for a conversation gambit. "You like baseball?"

"It's okay."

_I'll be okay. You can leave me alone._

The added thought at the end of his sentence was enough for me. I nodded, resisted the urge to shake his hand then walked off so that we could both return to our business. Sometimes that was all it took. I'd orchestrate a scene and talk for a few moments with the person and it would be enough to pull them out of the darkness. It's like breaking their bleak rhythm somehow. I guess I should have known it wouldn't be enough this time because he had cut me off before the encounter was complete.

The next time I saw Ichigo, he was falling down a building, plummeting to the earth after leaping off the viewing deck of the science department. He hit the ground and people started screaming. I had just arrived at the area. I came in time to see him jump.

That's why I'm standing on the roof deck of the same building he had leapt off. I'm standing here pacing and mourning. People are sad and miserable and guilty about what happened. I feel all those things too but mostly, I'm just pissed off because he killed himself. He committed suicide just because he was having a dark day and I want to hit him for it. I honestly want to punch his lights out if only he wasn't dead already. Because shit, what the fuck did he do? He wasn't supposed to jump off the building. That wasn't what he was thinking about when I saw him last. He was supposed to still be alive.

I was supposed to save him.

And maybe I was able to save other people that day. Maybe I was able to talk to someone so that they didn't meet the same end but that offers me no comfort. You can't just save one person and lose another and be okay with it, because when you talk about lives it's not a fifty-fity, splitting the odds, numbers game. It's one hundred percent all the time and when someone dies, there's nothing that can compensate. So you just grieve.

For god knows how long.

Ichigo Ueda wasn't the first person I was unable able to reach and I know he won't be the last. When I think about other days that might turn out like this, I sometimes want to pitch myself over the ledge too because god, this hurts. And I didn't even know him.

Everyone has dark days. I know that more than anyone. Today, it's my turn.


	4. Half-Life

**Academy Monologues**

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**Prompt 4: Half-Life – Youichi **

**Genre: Supernatural**

We all have demons. That's a cliché that never loses truth despite its overuse. I know this more than anyone and in my view these demons are more than just abstract ideas. They are real. They are present. They are my friends.

I've never been good at making friends. When I was younger, I had trouble distinguishing real people from the unearthly ones that walk with us. I would go down the corridor and see two people side by side and it would make no difference to me if one person wore an Alice Academy uniform while the other wore a _sokutai_. It just made sense to acknowledge that both of them were there. If I choose to greet the ghost instead of the human, that is my decision and I don't think it's fair for people to look at me differently because of it. Nonetheless, when I grew up I learned to curb myself even though the apparitions are always there.

Sometimes my classmates would tell me I was acting strange, like I'm not myself on a given day. These are probably days when I have a significant brush with the afterlife. My Alice allows me to see and to manipulate ghosts but I didn't know how powerful it was until I grew up and realized specters still had minds of their own. There are days when I talk to them, listen to them. When I start to understand them, controlling spirits just isn't as badass as people think. It's cruel and if I'm not careful it could change me.

One day I went off on my own to a seldom visited location of the school: the Alice Academy Memorial Park. Yes, we had our own. The Academy is an entire community and there are people who live and die by their Alices. Some of us never fit in outside or never cared to try and these people choose to stay within the walls and pass away on the grounds. Over time though, this number dwindled. More and more students choose to venture outside upon graduation and so the cemetery never expanded. A few areas fell into disrepair and the Alices that lay here were soon forgotten.

Except by me. I could never forget.

"_You shouldn't have come today, Youichi,"_ a kind old woman spoke as she floated next to me. _"He is not expecting you."_

Mizuki Inoue, Somatic Alice, 1859 to 1952.

"_On the contrary, I think he knows you're coming_,_" _contradicted a middle-aged ghost, carrying a wispy base guitar.

Ryouta Mori, Technical Alice, 1938 to 1975

"He does?"

"_He's been wandering around his plot since sunup."_

"I won't be long," I told them then proceeded with a sure step. "This should be easy."

Ryouta shook his head. _"It's your funeral. Catch you on the flipside, kid."_

I smiled as he faded away. Death jokes spoken by ghosts, the irony of it always amused me. Mizuki, ever fond of me since the day I wandered in here the first time, followed until I reached a gate located near the back of the graveyard. I've been there a number of times but I was still struck by the odd mix of magnificence and decay of the place.

It was a huge mausoleum, with embellishments that were once painted gold now faded into a brownish gray. It employed Grecian architecture so it dwarfed the more traditional Japanese gravestones surrounding it. Time did not respect its opulence and it fell into the same ruin as the other markers. Perhaps it was even more defined because of its size.

Daitaro Wakahisa, great first son, eternally young, 1964 to 1981.

"_Youichi, what brings you here?"_

This was spoken by a teenage ghost garbed in an old version of our Academy uniform. His hair was permanently windswept and he wore a smirk that I was accustomed to see. He was tall and incredibly thin, giving him a maladroit appearance. In death, it was difficult to tell what his coloring had been but I looked him up in the yearbooks years ago. Upon his passing, he was a dark-haired, blue eyed, enigmatic student— loved by his parents, excluded by his classmates. I wasn't sure why he was still in this graveyard. Nobody here knew why they lingered. That was a question they needed to answer themselves and those that managed to would cross over before they could share the wisdom with the others.

"Hello, Daitaro." I stepped past his gate then walked no further. "You have something I need to retrieve."

"_I don't know what you mean."_

"You know _who_ I mean and that's all that matters," I said calmly.

Daitaro considered me for a moment and I knew he wanted to play his card longer to keep me there. We had that kind of friendship. He wasn't really spiteful. He just had a difficult life and his loneliness didn't grow any less in the afterlife. When I first met him, I was eight years old and I didn't know the danger of befriending a ghost that was still very much fixated on living. Sometimes, the absurdity of our situation struck me. Here I was, growing old wanting to slow down while he wanted to age but was forever seventeen.

"_Of course, you came for him."_

Daitaro swept an arm behind him and I saw a translucent figure floating right next to his nameplate. It was one of my classmates; a student that I knew had recently developed a drug addiction and was fighting to be rid of it. I spoke to him once and when he told me his story, about his hallucinations and his nightmares, I knew at once his demons were more than just figments of his imagination. It brought me here.

"Come on Daitaro, he doesn't belong here."

"_He came with me willingly."_

I knew that must have been half true. The spirit next to him hung morosely but it was nearly as clear to me as everyone else residing in that cemetery. Evidently, he already had one foot in the grave and he had voluntarily stepped in.

"Regardless, you need to leave him alone," I said at last. "He's having a hard time as it is but I know he could pull himself out if he truly wanted to."

"_But perhaps I need a friend too…"_

Daitaro, not exactly spiteful but had several bouts of selfishness. I've learned there's only one way to counter him and that was with a dose of selflessness I very rarely exercised.

"Won't you bargain with me?"

"_Of course, Youichi,"_ he said with glee. We both knew where this was going. _"What will you give me in exchange for his life?"_

I took a breath. Behind me, I knew the other ghosts were watching, some of them with pity, some of them with rancor but many of them with envy.

"One day."

One day. It wasn't something to be trifled with. I was about to lose a day of my life and with it I give up full use of my entire person to another being. It was one day for him to go out and be with other people. It was one day for him to live again. I've done this before and it is only possible with me because of my Alice. They could never take over me completely and the seamless inhabitancy could never be done with another.

Daitaro smiled and though he was happy I made the offer, I could tell he wasn't entirely pleased for my loss. That too was part of the kind of friendship we had.

"Thank you."

When I returned to school, I saw my classmate again. He seemed to be in better spirits and I left him to fight demons that this time I knew would be entirely his own.

That day my classmates told me I was acting strange. I'm not myself again, they say. They have no idea how accurate they are. It's true we all have demons. But I don't know when I chose it to be my lot in life to deal with my own as well as that of others.

Ghost Manipulation Alice. Who manipulates who, I wonder.


End file.
